Scott M Mourtgo
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 4399175 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Scott M Mourtgo |
| NOMBRES | Scott M |
| APELLIDO | Mourtgo |
| FIRMA | MOURTGO S M |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Utah |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7486-9150 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 18 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 89 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 18 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2019 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Avertogenic deaths
Each year, roughly 1,100 people are fatally shot by U.S. police, and nearly as many are shot and survive. Research on these shootings typically begins and ends at the encounter—suspect behavior, officer perception, situational features. We propose an earlier starting point. Avertogenic police killings are downstream lethal encounters enabled by upstream court decisions about sentencing, diversion, and release. The framework treats police shooting…
Through Thick and Thin
This study compared traditional (human-coded) qualitative analysis and (machine-coded) natural language processing (NLP) techniques on the same open-ended survey responses from police officers. Both strategies uncovered similar broad themes, but the traditional approach revealed more depth and nuance, including an additional category of themes. Therefore, NLP-basedapproaches cannot currently replace traditional qualitative analysis when depth and…
Police staffing shortages, public awareness, and policy preferences
Since the summer of 2020, police agencies across the United States have continued to experience police staffing shortages. The consequences of understaffed police agencies are well studied, but little is known about whether the public is aware of the staffing problem and its consequences for public safety and police behavior. This study presents a pre-registered factorial survey experiment to 3105 US adults, varying the information respondents se…
Recalibrating the risk of false confession wrongful convictions
False confession wrongful convictions (FCWCs) are a serious failure of the criminal justice system. Although scholars have identified interrogation tactics thought to elevate this risk, existing research rarely estimates the population-level probability that legally permissible methods will produce an FCWC. Instead, inference relies on outcome-selected case series and laboratory diagnosticity ratios that ignore base rates and the far larger unive…
Burning questions
This study examines patrol officers’ perceptions of a newly implemented hot spots policing strategy within the Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD). Extensive research has shown that violent crime is disproportionately concentrated in very small geographic locations. Hot spots policing leverages this phenomenon by focusing police resources in these small, high-crime areas. While the effectiveness of hot spots policing in reducing crime is wel…
Speaking of reform
Research summary This study investigates how information about public opinion and peer practices influences police executives' views on civilian review boards. We applied structural topic modeling in an experimental paradigm, a novel approach diverging from traditional experimental survey methods, to the open‐ended responses of 1331 police executives collected in an original survey experiment. This technique enables the capture of subtle shifts i…
The effect of formal de‐policing on police traffic stop behavior and crime
Research Summary On March 1, 2022, correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters stated that officers can no longer use minor infractions (e.g., equipment violations) as a pretextual reason to further investigate drivers for criminal behavior. If LAPD officers are to execute a discretionary stop, they must activate their body‐worn cameras and reasonably articulate to the civilian why they are being investigated. The in…
When police pull back
Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis, or could not rule out endogeneity. This study addresses each of these issues, thereby advancing the…
Police reform from the top down
The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts. We use a pre‐registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) sta…
Turnover in large US policing agencies following the George Floyd protests
Institutional factors driving citizen perceptions of AI in government
Law enforcement agencies are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI)‐powered tools. While prior work emphasizes the technological features driving public opinion, we investigate how public trust and support for AI in government vary with the institutional context. We administer a pre‐registered survey experiment to 4200 respondents about AI use cases in policing to measure responsiveness to three key institutional factors: bureaucratic…
The “war on cops,” retaliatory violence, and the murder of George Floyd
The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high‐profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) on firearm assaults of U.S. police officers, we use Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) modeling to empirically assess if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United Sta…
Covid-19 vaccine program eliminates law enforcement workforce infections
COVID-19 has created tremendous operational difficulties for law enforcement agencies, with substantial portions of their staff quarantined for either exposure or infection. With the rollout of a vaccine beginning in early 2021, there is hoped for relief on the horizon. However, to date, no study has reported the vaccine's effect on infection rates within the law enforcement workforce. We address that gap with a report on a single large agency's …
Comparing 911 and emergency hotline calls for domestic violence in seven cities
Research Summary : We examine changes in help-seeking for domestic violence (DV) in seven U.S. cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bayesian structural time-series modeling with daily data to construct a synthetic counterfactual, we test whether calls to police and/or emergency hotlines varied in 2020 as people stayed home due to COVID-19. Across this sample, we estimate there were approximately 1030 more calls to police and 1671 more calls…
Elevated police turnover following the summer of George Floyd protests
Research summary Several of the largest U.S. police departments reported a sharp increase in officer resignations following massive public protests directed at policing in the summer of 2020. Yet, to date, no study has rigorously assessed the impact of the George Floyd protests on police resignations. We fill this void using 60 months of employment data from a large police department in the western United States. Bayesian structural time‐series m…
Improving victim engagement and officer response in rape investigations
High‐Stakes Administrative Discretion
Administrative discretion can range from benign to troubling, and law enforcement officers possess the power to use physical violence in the discharge of their duties. Body‐worn cameras (BWCs) are a workplace surveillance technology intended to monitor officer behavior in the field, but officers exercise discretion over whether or not to activate their cameras. So, what drives officers to activate BWCs? Combining unique survey and administrative …
The rhetoric of de-policing
Elevated police turnover following the summer of George Floyd protests
Research summary Several of the largest U.S. police departments reported a sharp increase in officer resignations following massive public protests directed at policing in the summer of 2020. Yet, to date, no study has rigorously assessed the impact of the George Floyd protests on police resignations. We fill this void using 60 months of employment data from a large police department in the western United States. Bayesian structural time‐series m…
High‐Stakes Administrative Discretion
Administrative discretion can range from benign to troubling, and law enforcement officers possess the power to use physical violence in the discharge of their duties. Body‐worn cameras (BWCs) are a workplace surveillance technology intended to monitor officer behavior in the field, but officers exercise discretion over whether or not to activate their cameras. So, what drives officers to activate BWCs? Combining unique survey and administrative …
Institutional factors driving citizen perceptions of AI in government
Law enforcement agencies are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI)‐powered tools. While prior work emphasizes the technological features driving public opinion, we investigate how public trust and support for AI in government vary with the institutional context. We administer a pre‐registered survey experiment to 4200 respondents about AI use cases in policing to measure responsiveness to three key institutional factors: bureaucratic…
Comparing 911 and emergency hotline calls for domestic violence in seven cities
Research Summary : We examine changes in help-seeking for domestic violence (DV) in seven U.S. cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bayesian structural time-series modeling with daily data to construct a synthetic counterfactual, we test whether calls to police and/or emergency hotlines varied in 2020 as people stayed home due to COVID-19. Across this sample, we estimate there were approximately 1030 more calls to police and 1671 more calls…
When police pull back
Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis, or could not rule out endogeneity. This study addresses each of these issues, thereby advancing the…
The rhetoric of de-policing
Turnover in large US policing agencies following the George Floyd protests
The effect of formal de‐policing on police traffic stop behavior and crime
Research Summary On March 1, 2022, correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters stated that officers can no longer use minor infractions (e.g., equipment violations) as a pretextual reason to further investigate drivers for criminal behavior. If LAPD officers are to execute a discretionary stop, they must activate their body‐worn cameras and reasonably articulate to the civilian why they are being investigated. The in…
Police reform from the top down
The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts. We use a pre‐registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) sta…
The “war on cops,” retaliatory violence, and the murder of George Floyd
The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high‐profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) on firearm assaults of U.S. police officers, we use Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) modeling to empirically assess if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United Sta…
Improving victim engagement and officer response in rape investigations
The rhetoric of de-policing
High‐Stakes Administrative Discretion
Administrative discretion can range from benign to troubling, and law enforcement officers possess the power to use physical violence in the discharge of their duties. Body‐worn cameras (BWCs) are a workplace surveillance technology intended to monitor officer behavior in the field, but officers exercise discretion over whether or not to activate their cameras. So, what drives officers to activate BWCs? Combining unique survey and administrative …
Covid-19 vaccine program eliminates law enforcement workforce infections
COVID-19 has created tremendous operational difficulties for law enforcement agencies, with substantial portions of their staff quarantined for either exposure or infection. With the rollout of a vaccine beginning in early 2021, there is hoped for relief on the horizon. However, to date, no study has reported the vaccine's effect on infection rates within the law enforcement workforce. We address that gap with a report on a single large agency's …
Comparing 911 and emergency hotline calls for domestic violence in seven cities
Research Summary : We examine changes in help-seeking for domestic violence (DV) in seven U.S. cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bayesian structural time-series modeling with daily data to construct a synthetic counterfactual, we test whether calls to police and/or emergency hotlines varied in 2020 as people stayed home due to COVID-19. Across this sample, we estimate there were approximately 1030 more calls to police and 1671 more calls…
Elevated police turnover following the summer of George Floyd protests
Research summary Several of the largest U.S. police departments reported a sharp increase in officer resignations following massive public protests directed at policing in the summer of 2020. Yet, to date, no study has rigorously assessed the impact of the George Floyd protests on police resignations. We fill this void using 60 months of employment data from a large police department in the western United States. Bayesian structural time‐series m…
Improving victim engagement and officer response in rape investigations
Turnover in large US policing agencies following the George Floyd protests
Institutional factors driving citizen perceptions of AI in government
Law enforcement agencies are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI)‐powered tools. While prior work emphasizes the technological features driving public opinion, we investigate how public trust and support for AI in government vary with the institutional context. We administer a pre‐registered survey experiment to 4200 respondents about AI use cases in policing to measure responsiveness to three key institutional factors: bureaucratic…
The “war on cops,” retaliatory violence, and the murder of George Floyd
The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high‐profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) on firearm assaults of U.S. police officers, we use Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) modeling to empirically assess if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United Sta…
Speaking of reform
Research summary This study investigates how information about public opinion and peer practices influences police executives' views on civilian review boards. We applied structural topic modeling in an experimental paradigm, a novel approach diverging from traditional experimental survey methods, to the open‐ended responses of 1331 police executives collected in an original survey experiment. This technique enables the capture of subtle shifts i…
The effect of formal de‐policing on police traffic stop behavior and crime
Research Summary On March 1, 2022, correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters stated that officers can no longer use minor infractions (e.g., equipment violations) as a pretextual reason to further investigate drivers for criminal behavior. If LAPD officers are to execute a discretionary stop, they must activate their body‐worn cameras and reasonably articulate to the civilian why they are being investigated. The in…
When police pull back
Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis, or could not rule out endogeneity. This study addresses each of these issues, thereby advancing the…
Police reform from the top down
The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts. We use a pre‐registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) sta…
Burning questions
This study examines patrol officers’ perceptions of a newly implemented hot spots policing strategy within the Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD). Extensive research has shown that violent crime is disproportionately concentrated in very small geographic locations. Hot spots policing leverages this phenomenon by focusing police resources in these small, high-crime areas. While the effectiveness of hot spots policing in reducing crime is wel…
Avertogenic deaths
Each year, roughly 1,100 people are fatally shot by U.S. police, and nearly as many are shot and survive. Research on these shootings typically begins and ends at the encounter—suspect behavior, officer perception, situational features. We propose an earlier starting point. Avertogenic police killings are downstream lethal encounters enabled by upstream court decisions about sentencing, diversion, and release. The framework treats police shooting…
Through Thick and Thin
This study compared traditional (human-coded) qualitative analysis and (machine-coded) natural language processing (NLP) techniques on the same open-ended survey responses from police officers. Both strategies uncovered similar broad themes, but the traditional approach revealed more depth and nuance, including an additional category of themes. Therefore, NLP-basedapproaches cannot currently replace traditional qualitative analysis when depth and…
Police staffing shortages, public awareness, and policy preferences
Since the summer of 2020, police agencies across the United States have continued to experience police staffing shortages. The consequences of understaffed police agencies are well studied, but little is known about whether the public is aware of the staffing problem and its consequences for public safety and police behavior. This study presents a pre-registered factorial survey experiment to 3105 US adults, varying the information respondents se…
Recalibrating the risk of false confession wrongful convictions
False confession wrongful convictions (FCWCs) are a serious failure of the criminal justice system. Although scholars have identified interrogation tactics thought to elevate this risk, existing research rarely estimates the population-level probability that legally permissible methods will produce an FCWC. Instead, inference relies on outcome-selected case series and laboratory diagnosticity ratios that ignore base rates and the far larger unive…
Political science (14 obras) · Law (12 obras) · Policing Practices and Perceptions (12 obras) · Psychology (12 obras) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (11 obras) · Law (10 obras) · Criminology (9 obras) · Officer (8 obras) · Business (7 obras) · Public relations (7 obras)